For one, I suppose one would have to imagine that god was somehow in control of everything (Ps139) and in particular the growing foetus. We are told by the Catholics at least that the soul enters the newly formed zygote - and action which would involve god. Thus anything that goes wrong in the whole process of zygote to live birth is going to have to fall the overview of god. Thus, I suppose, at least in a general way, one could put still births and miscarriages down to god. Of course, he might have a defence - the chromosomes were not right or formed correctly for example - but I think Ps 139 rather ties it down.

Now medical science is another thing. We have learned what we have of the human body at least in part against the wished of the church (Roman of course) who would not allow the dissection of corpses. I think the church then wanted people to pray for healing and, to be fair there wasn't much choice in the medieval period. (I notice some odd sects in the USA that still pray rather than use doctors and that children die as a result.)

Now it is often said that medical science is part of god's working so that doctors are doing his work. I imagine that one looks to Luke to get that sort of idea. Yet I think, given the opposition of the church to research in all sorts of areas I, personally, take the view that god can't claim the human hard work of medical science but that's only me. I think that it is part of the amazing journey inquisitive people have made from ignorance to, frankly, unbelievable achievements in science and technology. I wonder if the Reformation had not happened we would be even using the Internet today.

Logged

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)

For a person to accept this view, I wonder how they see advances in medicine? Is a medical advance which reduces miscarriages going against God's will? Was God controlling that advance also?

The thing is, everyone decides god's will themselves. That is, their will is god's will. Because, really, in whom is god confiding these days?

So, yeah, some people do see modern advances (Ivf, condoms, birth control pills, etc) as against god's will. But things like seat belts and air bags in cars, god is totally on board with. Remember, the invention of the lightning rod caused quite a theological uproar, since many people thought it usurped gods will. Then, after they realized they wouldn't have to rebuild the tallest building in town - the church - because it was it by lightning for the fifth time in 10 years, they decided it was god's will to have such a useful tool. God works in mysterious ways, huh?

My question is, how is anything that happens contrary to the will of a supposedly omniscient, omnipotent god? Yeah, yeah, free will. But god has a plan. And anytime something bad happens, it is part of that plan and for the best or was meant to happen for some greater good. So much for free will. That only seems to be around when it is convenient.

It seems to me either abortion is part of gods will, or god is as random and capricious as nature.

For a person to accept this view, I wonder how they see advances in medicine? Is a medical advance which reduces miscarriages going against God's will? Was God controlling that advance also?

Ever curious,

OldChurchGuy

Those things are the result of progressing through with the knowledge that God has given us. Of course we must take into account that Satan has his hand in this as well. This is why some medications have awful side effects, which means you are better off being sick than taking the cure and suffering the side effects.

Since it was prophesied that knowledge will increase in the last days, it's no surprise this is happening. In the past 200 years, our knowledge has skyrocketed to record setting levels. Even television was predicted in Revelation.

Logged

Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

For a person to accept this view, I wonder how they see advances in medicine? Is a medical advance which reduces miscarriages going against God's will? Was God controlling that advance also?

The thing is, everyone decides god's will themselves. That is, their will is god's will. Because, really, in whom is god confiding these days?

So, yeah, some people do see modern advances (Ivf, condoms, birth control pills, etc) as against god's will. But things like seat belts and air bags in cars, god is totally on board with. Remember, the invention of the lightning rod caused quite a theological uproar, since many people thought it usurped gods will. Then, after they realized they wouldn't have to rebuild the tallest building in town - the church - because it was it by lightning for the fifth time in 10 years, they decided it was god's will to have such a useful tool. God works in mysterious ways, huh?

My question is, how is anything that happens contrary to the will of a supposedly omniscient, omnipotent god? Yeah, yeah, free will. But god has a plan. And anytime something bad happens, it is part of that plan and for the best or was meant to happen for some greater good. So much for free will. That only seems to be around when it is convenient.

It seems to me either abortion is part of gods will, or god is as random and capricious as nature.

God's plan is for us to have free will. Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not. The movie is based on our choices. God doesn't cause our actions, our free will causes our actions and God knows our choices because he already saw us make those choices before we even make those choices.

For example, I go 1 week into the future and see that you will have a hamburger for lunch on Tuesday. Me knowing that you will have a hamburger does not mean that I have caused you to eat that hamburger. I merely observed your choice.

Logged

Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

God's plan is for us to have free will. Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not. The movie is based on our choices. God doesn't cause our actions, our free will causes our actions and God knows our choices because he already saw us make those choices before we even make those choices.

For example, I go 1 week into the future and see that you will have a hamburger for lunch on Tuesday. Me knowing that you will have a hamburger does not mean that I have caused you to eat that hamburger. I merely observed your choice.

Right, so, if I get it right, god, sitting outwith time, can see the whole of time at once and so can see that one person will make heaven and another hell. They have free will but god knows how things will play out. That works fine for the free will part but have you thought about what it says about god?

According to Ps 139, god watches over each foetus as it grows in the womb. God we are told implants the soul at conception. So the birth of an individual is the responsibility of god. So, answer this, Skeptic - why would god allow Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot to be conceived and born? he obviously knew how things would work out - the killings, the terror and he could just not have alloowed these 3 to be born and saved the world a lot of horror. Now, Skeptic, why would he not have stopped all that - maybe lack of love for those killed and injured by these three?

Logged

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)

Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not.

Why don't you just accept the fact that God doesn't know the whole movie, because if he did, he would have given us some prophecies about meteorite impacts, volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes and supernovas.

Christians pretend that God knows about the future because of some lame prophecies in Isaiah, but all those types of vague cultural prophecies can be fulfilled by prodding and manipulation, not forecast. Give me some supernatural prodding powers and I can make any "prophecy" come true.

God's plan is for us to have free will. Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not. The movie is based on our choices. God doesn't cause our actions, our free will causes our actions and God knows our choices because he already saw us make those choices before we even make those choices.

For example, I go 1 week into the future and see that you will have a hamburger for lunch on Tuesday. Me knowing that you will have a hamburger does not mean that I have caused you to eat that hamburger. I merely observed your choice.

Where this gets muddled is that people always want to tell you that "God has a plan". Which means that even though people have free will, and all sorts of things get completely messed up due to "demons" and "sin" and all the rest of it, somehow the path toward the end result is supposed to be following some divine script.

Someone posted a treacly bit of a "silver lining" type sermon on facebook the other day, wherein the speaker maintained that anything bad that happens in your life...anything bad...if only it gets turned over to god will always, without fail, turn into a blessing.

Of course, in his examples, it was only something like losing a job or having a car break down. Which, while they can make life difficult, also DO have an inherent possibility that something better might turn up, which happens quite often. Heck, just over a year ago we were having a big problem trying to buy a house, as two sellers in a row backed out of signed contracts, leaving us heartbroken. in the lurch, and having to buy whatever seemed the best choice of all the places we had previously discounted as being unappealing to us. And with no prayer involved, it turned out that the house we ended up getting, for many reasons we hadn't really thought through, was, indeed, a perfect choice. Sometimes it works out that way naturally; sometimes it takes a bit of looking on the bright side; but, yes, on the whole, a LOT of things which seemed like disappointments at the time really do work out for the best.

Sometimes, though, they don't. Sometimes, things happen which there simply IS no bright side to. A family's children all being wiped out by a drunk driver? A child bullied to the point of taking their own life? A school full of young children massacred by a gunman or buried by a landslide? Yes, there is generally a way for those left behind to find a way to cope and make the best of a situation by, let's say, starting a foundation or whatnot, but, honestly, how often is whatever the person does actually better in any way than having the loss never happen? They might be finding a way to fill a void, but not having the void to begin with surely would have been preferable.

Anyway, I'm veering off my point. Which is, IF god has this divine plan, and free will keeps throwing it off, how can anything ever work out the way he wants. Even on a personal level; someone has a setback and gets depressed, and instead of letting Jesus take the wheel, they end up in a downward spiral and end up taking their own lives (sometimes along with a bunch of others for good measure). Obviously, whatever god's plan for that person was, it didn't work out. Yet, for those left behind, they will sometimes find comfort in those platitudes which maintain that it WAS god's plan. So, which is it? Either god's plan includes a whole LOT of people NOT following his plan, and thus giving other people tragedies to make the best of which end up all being "for the best". Or the whole thing is random and chaotic, and outside of real tragedies which there is simply nothing good about no matter how you slice it, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't, and trying to look at the bright side is always better than otherwise.

To be fair, you didn't actually mention the divine plan here other than it being free will. So do you believe that, somewhere, in the end, god has a scenario planned out for the finale?

God's plan is for us to have free will. Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not.

If you accept God is creator and has full knowledge of what will happen in the future BASED ON HIS DECISIONS DURING CREATION there is no free will.

you lose.

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

So god knows everything that will happen, and does nothing about any of the terrible things. Because it is all up to our free will. Starving kids, torture, rape, warfare, mental illness, stillborn babies and miscarriages, addiction, suicide. Right. Gotcha. Real loving god you have there. Where is the loving part again?

Also, maybe you should read up a bit on drugs, the scientific method and medical treatment before you post made-up nonsense like medical side effects being caused by Satan.....

Satan was way busier killing people and making treatments not work back before people found our about germs, and medicine became science-based. Satan is still way more effective in places where science-based medicine is unavailable, regardless of what god people believe in. Wonder how science has been able to minimize the effects of Satan so well, while religion has had no apparent impact whatsoever?

Coincidence, I suppose, since Satan, like god, is a supernatural being who should not be affected by human ideas.

So god knows everything that will happen, and does nothing about any of the terrible things. Because it is all up to our free will. Starving kids, torture, rape, warfare, mental illness, stillborn babies and miscarriages, addiction, suicide. Right. Gotcha. Real loving god you have there. Where is the loving part again?

Also, maybe you should read up a bit on drugs, the scientific method and medical treatment before you post made-up nonsense like medical side effects being caused by Satan.....

Satan was way busier killing people and making treatments not work back before people found our about germs, and medicine became science-based. Satan is still way more effective in places where science-based medicine is unavailable, regardless of what god people believe in. Wonder how science has been able to minimize the effects of Satan so well, while religion has had no apparent impact whatsoever?

Coincidence, I suppose, since Satan, like god, is a supernatural being who should not be affected by human ideas.

Heaven will bring a stop to all of that unpleasantness. This is not Heaven, this is the fallen world known as the Earth. This was explained in the Bible.

Logged

Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

Where this gets muddled is that people always want to tell you that "God has a plan". Which means that even though people have free will, and all sorts of things get completely messed up due to "demons" and "sin" and all the rest of it, somehow the path toward the end result is supposed to be following some divine script.

Someone posted a treacly bit of a "silver lining" type sermon on facebook the other day, wherein the speaker maintained that anything bad that happens in your life...anything bad...if only it gets turned over to god will always, without fail, turn into a blessing.

Of course, in his examples, it was only something like losing a job or having a car break down. Which, while they can make life difficult, also DO have an inherent possibility that something better might turn up, which happens quite often. Heck, just over a year ago we were having a big problem trying to buy a house, as two sellers in a row backed out of signed contracts, leaving us heartbroken. in the lurch, and having to buy whatever seemed the best choice of all the places we had previously discounted as being unappealing to us. And with no prayer involved, it turned out that the house we ended up getting, for many reasons we hadn't really thought through, was, indeed, a perfect choice. Sometimes it works out that way naturally; sometimes it takes a bit of looking on the bright side; but, yes, on the whole, a LOT of things which seemed like disappointments at the time really do work out for the best.

Sometimes, though, they don't. Sometimes, things happen which there simply IS no bright side to. A family's children all being wiped out by a drunk driver? A child bullied to the point of taking their own life? A school full of young children massacred by a gunman or buried by a landslide? Yes, there is generally a way for those left behind to find a way to cope and make the best of a situation by, let's say, starting a foundation or whatnot, but, honestly, how often is whatever the person does actually better in any way than having the loss never happen? They might be finding a way to fill a void, but not having the void to begin with surely would have been preferable.

Anyway, I'm veering off my point. Which is, IF god has this divine plan, and free will keeps throwing it off, how can anything ever work out the way he wants. Even on a personal level; someone has a setback and gets depressed, and instead of letting Jesus take the wheel, they end up in a downward spiral and end up taking their own lives (sometimes along with a bunch of others for good measure). Obviously, whatever god's plan for that person was, it didn't work out. Yet, for those left behind, they will sometimes find comfort in those platitudes which maintain that it WAS god's plan. So, which is it? Either god's plan includes a whole LOT of people NOT following his plan, and thus giving other people tragedies to make the best of which end up all being "for the best". Or the whole thing is random and chaotic, and outside of real tragedies which there is simply nothing good about no matter how you slice it, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't, and trying to look at the bright side is always better than otherwise.

To be fair, you didn't actually mention the divine plan here other than it being free will. So do you believe that, somewhere, in the end, god has a scenario planned out for the finale?

This was all explained by jesus in the parable of the wheat and tares. In order to remove weeds (bad people), a farmer removes some wheat (good people) with it as well. Let both of them grow together until the harvest (judgement Day) and then I will separate them (Heaven and Hell).

Logged

Matthew 10:22 "and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." - Jesus (said 2,000 years ago and still true today.)

This was all explained by jesus in the parable of the wheat and tares. In order to remove weeds (bad people), a farmer removes some wheat (good people) with it as well. Let both of them grow together until the harvest (judgement Day) and then I will separate them (Heaven and Hell).

That really doesn't address my question. The only way that works is if the only "plan" god has is to play out the game and see who is still standing at the end. But however you slice that scenario, the collateral damage is many, many orders of magnitude higher than the number of people who manage to get to heaven. Which really doesn't speak well of a deity who supposedly loves us. And MOST especially if he could foresee the result before even setting the game in motion.

, the collateral damage is many, many orders of magnitude higher than the number of people who manage to get to heaven.

Collateral damage is a byproduct of a lack of information. Lets face facts; even the Wehrmacht would rather have spent every gram of gunpowder on destroying munitions plants and war materials rather than hitting populations they wished to conquer.

And God, as supposedly Omnicient entity, shouldn't have collateral damage.

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

So god knows everything that will happen, and does nothing about any of the terrible things. Because it is all up to our free will. Starving kids, torture, rape, warfare, mental illness, stillborn babies and miscarriages, addiction, suicide. Right. Gotcha. Real loving god you have there. Where is the loving part again?

Also, maybe you should read up a bit on drugs, the scientific method and medical treatment before you post made-up nonsense like medical side effects being caused by Satan.....

Satan was way busier killing people and making treatments not work back before people found our about germs, and medicine became science-based. Satan is still way more effective in places where science-based medicine is unavailable, regardless of what god people believe in. Wonder how science has been able to minimize the effects of Satan so well, while religion has had no apparent impact whatsoever?

Coincidence, I suppose, since Satan, like god, is a supernatural being who should not be affected by human ideas.

Heaven will bring a stop to all of that unpleasantness. This is not Heaven, this is the fallen world known as the Earth. This was explained in the Bible.

So, this "fallen world known as the Earth" is where lots of people suffer needlessly, and most people just cannot possibly make it to heaven due to where and how they were born. This all had to be part of god's original big plan for us, right? Or there was some mistake-- but god does not make mistakes, does he?

Again, nice god you have there. Very loving, with excellent planning skills. Clearly worthy of worship.

This was all explained by jesus in the parable of the wheat and tares. In order to remove weeds (bad people), a farmer removes some wheat (good people) with it as well. Let both of them grow together until the harvest (judgement Day) and then I will separate them (Heaven and Hell).

I find this to be a bit strange. Let's say that god is simultaneously all-powerful, all-knowing, and incapable of removing weeds without damaging some of the good crop. I'll hand-wave that for the time being.

What exactly happens to all of the crops, as a whole, if a farmer doesn't remove any of the weeds, ever?

When it's time for god to harvest, will he find nothing but weeds? Should he blame the wheat for not fighting off the weeds?

If it's really not a worthy sacrifice to damage some of the wheat crop to eliminate the weeds, why did he try to do exactly that in the distant past (i.e. The Flood)?

Logged

"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

That is such a bogus comparison! This analogy implies that god is either unaware of, or doesn't care about other, less deadly methods of running his supposedly favorite planet. Not at all suggestive of an omniscient or loving being.

This describes the behavior of a spoiled angry child (like the Bad Seed or that scary kid with superpowers in Twilight Zone). Or some kind of powerful comic book super villain. God is acting like Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, destroying random sh!t, causing chaos and acting all bada$$..... just because you pissed him off. Go to 1:00 for major wanton bada$$ery:

Who wants a god like that around? If you worship him, it's not because you love him, and certainly not because he loves you, but because you are freaking terrified of him.

Can you imagine making a flower garden, and having the power to prevent weeds from growing, but letting them grow anyway so you can spray poison on them? If that is not bad enough, add to it the fact that you will kill off lots of the flowers as well. I like to garden and I use mulch or some barrier to keep out the weeds. Then I don't have to kill lots of them them later.

"Awww, too many effin' weeds! I'll teach you to grow in my garden!"--Whiplash slashes fire across the entire garden, torching all the weeds and half of everything else. Who gardens by killing weeds and good plants alike-- if there are other methods available? Extra work, and only makes sense if you really enjoy killing. And no, any parent who tortures one of their kids to death to teach the rest of them a lesson fails the definition of "loving" bigtime. So don't give me that "loving parents can't let kids get away with disobedience, so therefore god has the right to kill most of us even if we kiss his a$$" Stockholm syndrome craziness.

Ignorant people used to let cats and dogs breed at will, and then they drowned or abandoned most of the puppies and kittens that resulted.[1] Most people nowadays consider that barbaric and unnecessary--it's much better to fix your pets and prevent all those unwanted baby animals from being born in the first place. Right? Given knowledge and expertise, anyone who acted like we did in the olden days would not be considered a good pet parent.

So, does a knowledgeable and caring being let everything grow and then kill off the bad ones, along with a bunch of the good ones? There is absolutely no way in hell that a being who acts that way is loving, caring or thoughtful. (Unless you completely redefine those words, as theists generally do.)

When I say ignorant, I mean folks who just did not know any better and I include my own family in this category. Nobody got their pets fixed back in the day. I cringe when I think about how many unwanted pups my male dog must have made roaming around loose.

So god knows everything that will happen, and does nothing about any of the terrible things. Because it is all up to our free will. Starving kids, torture, rape, warfare, mental illness, stillborn babies and miscarriages, addiction, suicide. Right. Gotcha. Real loving god you have there. Where is the loving part again?

God's plan is for us to have free will. Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not. The movie is based on our choices. God doesn't cause our actions, our free will causes our actions and God knows our choices because he already saw us make those choices before we even make those choices.

For example, I go 1 week into the future and see that you will have a hamburger for lunch on Tuesday. Me knowing that you will have a hamburger does not mean that I have caused you to eat that hamburger. I merely observed your choice.

It's funny, but I used to think precicely like this when I was of the RC faith--that is, before I came to really, critically think about the question. Skep, what you're talking about is not free will, but the illusion of free will. Just because you don't know the choice you're going to make, the fact that the ultimate creator of everything *does* know it precludes your actually making a "true" choice. You just think you're making a choice.

You can't have it both ways. If your god knows what choices his creations will make within the framework of reality he has created, then they don't really have a chioce. If his creations have actual free will, he cannot know what choices they will make.

You must pick one of these.

Or, you can pick "my beliefs in a supernatural being are faulty," of course...the choice is yours!

God's plan is for us to have free will. Since God knows the future but we don't, all of our choices are based on free will. God already knows the whole movie but we do not. The movie is based on our choices. God doesn't cause our actions, our free will causes our actions and God knows our choices because he already saw us make those choices before we even make those choices.

For example, I go 1 week into the future and see that you will have a hamburger for lunch on Tuesday. Me knowing that you will have a hamburger does not mean that I have caused you to eat that hamburger. I merely observed your choice.

It's funny, but I used to think precicely like this when I was of the RC faith--that is, before I came to really, critically think about the question. Skep, what you're talking about is not free will, but the illusion of free will. Just because you don't know the choice you're going to make, the fact that the ultimate creator of everything *does* know it precludes your actually making a "true" choice. You just think you're making a choice.

You can't have it both ways. If your god knows what choices his creations will make within the framework of reality he has created, then they don't really have a chioce. If his creations have actual free will, he cannot know what choices they will make.

You must pick one of these.

Or, you can pick "my beliefs in a supernatural being are faulty," of course...the choice is yours!

No, it is not like that at all.

Imagine watching a movie. You know every line of the movie by heart. Does this mean the actors had no free will?

The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.